Re: REA Reverse – Engineer Anything

Glancing at the Touhou 4 decomp[1], it's a lot better quality than a lot of AI decomps I've seen. It's matching, the variables are named sensibly, comments are sparse and comprehensible, and there's not much in the way of unaddressed Ghidra jank. And only in a month! My main complaint is that the file structuring seems more optimized for AI use than for mirroring the original intent of the devs. (Compare to this human-made Touhou 6 decomp.[2])

I know the retro game modding/decomp scene is already getting hit with a flood of low-effort ports.[3] Now they're going to be hit with a flood of half-decent decomps effortlessly generated by anyone with a $200/mo AI subscription, which become half-decent PC ports, which get modding support grafted on. It kinda just... totally eliminates that as a hobby entirely. I know people are going to be upset about this. And it's not even like with the AI art, where the pro and anti-AI camps live in their own camps. Solving the same puzzle twice just feels discouraging. Very similar to the problem academics are having with AI math/physics proofs.

I know a large reason people hate AI is because it's largely seen as tearing apart hobbyist/professional communities, eliminating reasons to collaborate with others and form relationships, and replacing it with an individualized dependence on a commercial product. It follows the same trend the tech industry took social media, from a method of connection to a tool of propaganda and paranoia and "@gork is this true?" This project, I think, is one of the most clear examples of that.

[1] https://github.com/N0zoM1z0/th04
[2] https://github.com/GensokyoClub/th06
[3] https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/pc-ports-of-old-cons...

InvisibleUp, 17 hours ago